The asterisk inside the example block isn't escaped properly, and appears as a header, leaving `#+begin_example` and `#+end_example` to appear as regular text. It occurs in at least both the HTML and LaTeX output. Here is a minimal example to reproduce the problem: * first section #+begin_example * I am not supposed to be a section #+end_example * second section #+begin_example Hello, world! #+end_example This is using `emacs -Q`, so I've left off the current state section. This also happens with Org commit 3c4cb7b296c78aafb0d6302a4075f1f1fa1c7e1c (`org-collect-keywords` was causing me issues, so I'm not at HEAD). Emacs : GNU Emacs 27.0.91 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.20, cairo version 1.17.3) of 2020-05-17 Package: Org mode version 9.3 (release_9.3 @ /usr/share/emacs/27.0.91/lisp/org/)